According to David Bentley Hart, American religion is a “poltergeist”, a force
capable of moving material realities about, often unpredictably and even alarmingly, and yet possessing no proper, stable material form of its own. American religion lacks the imposing structures of culture, law, and public worship the Christendom evolved over the centuries, but its energy is almost impossible to contain. It has no particular social place, yet it is everywhere.
While there is some advantage in the absence of strong institutional organization, at least in certain circumstances, and despite the fact that “faith often thrives best when it is largely unaccommodated, roaming on its own in wild places,” the formlessness of American religious life, according to Hart, does greatly degenerate its aesthetic influence:
Suffice it to say according to Hart it remains an open, albeit age-old question the kind of impact a largely formless American religious economy can have over American aesthetic life write large.
Read Hart’s entire essay here, or here.
UPDATE: Last Thursday Christianity Today ran a piece on suburbs and sacred space to which Alan Jacobs responded. Seen anything else? Have any thoughts?
